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Hi folks,
Just got back home after a great stay at Shady Bend and
the Rotary Roundup. Sorry, some of you could not make it - it was a good
one. Seeing Tracy fire up his 20B for the first time was great! The
only down side is that I was the only rotary flyer to make it in due to weather
and other circumstances. One couple flew in (airline) from Washington
state to attend. Several make long car trips, from AR, MS, NC and GA
as well as from around Florida.
War stories,rotary stories, life histories and other
lies provided entertainment around the camp fire (as well as through out the
day) and it sure appeared a great time was had by all. Richard Sohn
gave us a presentation on the status of his one rotor - some very nice looking
aluminum castings (no unfortunately they won't work for the two rotor).
Tracy gave us his design goal approach to his RV-8 3 rotor configurations -
taking it from the mission he wanted it to perform and leading to the design
considerations this required.
I got to provide a bit of entertainment (prompted by
Laura) about my many (mis) adventures, hopefully, the stories will keep somebody
else from committing the same dumb --- err error in judgement or
analysis.
Laura, as always, saw to the lodging and vittles - A super
spread each meal and always coffee in the morning. I'm sure I'm
not the only one that left with more pounds than I arrived with. If Tracy
had her energy, he would have finished the RV-8 4 years ago {:>)
Got a bit of a red face when I attempted to fire up my
rotary so folks could hear what a REAL rotary exhaust roar sounds like
{:>) - and totally and completely flooded the engine. I normally
fly with my EC2 controller in mode 1 in case I want to make and store some fine
MAP adjustments while flying. Well, not uncommon for me to still have it
in mode 1 when I land.
Well, with the new simulation diagnostics mode that Tracy
has now programmed it with - when the engine is NOT running and you hit the
store button in mode 1 it simulates the engine running at 3000 rpm and pulses
the injectors accordingly - well, if you have your fuel pumps on and hit the
store button (thinking that you are in mode zero and just injecting a squirt of
two of fuel) it fires all 4 injectors like its running at 3000 rpm and all that
pressurized fuel gets injected into the intake manifold - guess what? It
floods the engine in a second with fuel pouring out the exhaust pipes.
Well - this is what I later realized had happened several hours later sitting
around the campfire. We got to talking about why it flooded and when I
said I hit the button in mode 1 - Tracy said "you mean in mode zero" - the light
came on - Nope I was in mode 1 and sure enough it will flood the engine if you
have the fuel line pressurized and full of fuel and engage the diagnostics
mode. Tracy indicated that since he (and presumable others) fly with
mode 1 set up that he may move the diagnostics mode to the seldom used mode 2 to
preclude dummies from flooding their engines.
But, fortunately this morning the engine fired on the
first couple of blade rotations - whew! Had a bit of a head wind but an
uneventful trip.
I was honored to have a "photo" of my rotary powered RV-6A
adorn the Rotary roundup cake this year (see photo).
So hope those who could not make it this year can make it
next year.
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